Browsing by master's degree program "Alkeishiukkasfysiikan ja astrofysikaalisten tieteiden maisteriohjelma"

The aim of this thesis is to explore applications of machine learning to the study of asteroid spectra, and as such, its research question can be summarized as: How can asteroid spectra be analyzed using machine learning? The question is explored through evaluation of the obtained solutions to two tasks: the optimal locations of spectrophotometric filters for asteroid classification success and the formation of an asteroid taxonomy through unsupervised clustering. First, background theory for asteroids and particularly spectroscopy of asteroids is presented. Next, the theory of machine learning is briefly discussed, including a focus on the method utilized to solve the first task: neural networks. The first task is executed by developing an optimization algorithm that has access to a neural network that can determine the classification success rate of data samples that would be obtained using spectrophotometric filters at specific locations within the possible wavelength range. The second task, on the other hand, is evaluated through determining the optimal number of clusters for the given dataset and then developing taxonomies with the clustering algorithm k-means. The obtained results for the first task involving the optimal locations of filters for spectrophotometry seem reliable, and correlate relatively well with well-known mineralogical features on asteroid surfaces. The taxonomic systems developed by the unsupervised clustering also succeeded rather well, as many of the formed clusters seem to be meaningful and follow the trends in other asteroid taxonomies. Therefore, it seems that based on the two investigated tasks, machine learning can be applied well to asteroid spectroscopy. For future studies, larger datasets would be required for improving the overall reliability of the results.

Phase transitions in the early Universe and in condensed matter physics are active fields of research. During these transitions, objects such as topological solitons and defects are produced by the breaking of symmetry. Studying such objects more thoroughly could shed light on some of the modern problems in cosmology such as baryogenesis and explain many aspects in materials research. One example of such topological solitons are the (1+1) dimensional kinks and their respective higher dimensional domain walls. The dynamics of kink collisions are complicated and very sensitive to initial conditions. Making accurate predictions within such a system has proven to be difficult, and research has been conducted since the 70s. Especially difficult is predicting the location of resonance windows and giving a proper theoretical explanation for such a structure. Deeper understanding of these objects is interesting in its own right but can also bring insight in predicting their possibly generated cosmological signatures. In this thesis we have summarized the common field theoretic tools and methods for the analytic treatment of kinks. Homotopy theory and its applications are also covered in the context of classifying topological solitons and defects. We present our numerical simulation scheme and results on kink-antikink and kink-impurity collisions in the $\phi^4$ model. Kink-antikink pair production from a wobbling kink is also studied, in which case we found that the separation velocity of the produced kink-antikink pair is directly correlated with the excitation amplitude of the wobbling kink. Direct annihilation of the produced pair was also observed. We modify the $\phi^4$ model by adding a small linear term $\delta \phi^3$, which modifies the kinks into accelerating bubble walls. The collision dynamics and pair production of these objects are explored with the same simulation methods. We observe multiple new effects in kink-antikink collisions, such as potentially perpetual bouncing and faster bion formation in comparison to the $\phi^4$ model. We also showed that the $\delta$ term defines the preferred vacuum by inevitably annihilating any kink-antikink pair. During pair production we noticed a momentum transfer between the produced bion and the original kink and that direct annihilation seems unlikely in such processes. For wobbling kink - impurity collisions we found an asymmetric spectral wall. Future research prospects and potential expansions for our analysis are also discussed.

The distribution of matter in space is not homogeneous. Large structures such as galaxy groups, clusters or big empty spaces called voids can be observed at large scales in the Universe. The large scale structure of the Universe will depend on both the cosmological parameters and the dynamics of galaxy formation and evolution. One of the main observables that allow us to quantify this structure is the two-point correlation function, with which we can trace different galaxy properties such as luminosity, stellar mass and also, it enables us to track its evolution with redshift. In galaxy surveys, we do not obtain the location of galaxies in real space. We obtain our data in what it is called redshift space. This redshift space can be defined as a distortion of the real space generated by the redshift introduced by the peculiar velocities of galaxies and from the Hubble expansion of the Universe. Therefore, the distribution of galaxies in redshift space will look different from the one obtained in real space. These differences between both spaces are small but not negligible, and they depend strictly on the cosmology. In this work, we will assume a ΛCDM cosmology. Therefore, in order to find the different 1-dimensional or 2-dimensional correlations functions, we will use the most updated version of the code provided by the Euclid consortium, which belongs officially to the ESA Euclid mission. Moreover, we will also need different galaxy catalogues. These catalogues have already been simulated and they are called Minerva mocks, which are a set of 300 different cosmological mocks produced with N-body simulations. Finally, as there is a well-defined relation between real and redshift space, one could also assume that there is a relation between the two-point correlation functions in both real and redshift space. In this project, we will prove that the real-space one-dimensional two-point correlation function, which is the physically meaningful one, can be derived from the two-dimensional two-point correlation function in redshift space following a geometrical procedure independent of approximations. This method, in theory, should work for all distance scales.

We study how higher-order gravity affects Higgs inflation in the Palatini formulation. We first review the metric and Palatini formulations in comparative manner and discuss their differences. Next cosmic inflation driven by a scalar field and inflationary observables are discussed. After this we review the Higgs inflation and compute the inflationary observables both in the metric and Palatini formulations. We then consider adding higher-order terms of the curvature to the action. We derive the equations of motion for the most general action quadratic in the curvature that does not violate parity in both the metric and Palatini formulations. Finally we present a new result. We analyse Higgs inflation in the Palatini formulation with higher-order curvature terms. We consider a simplified scenario where only terms constructed from the symmetric part of the Ricci tensor are added to the action. This implies that there are no new gravitational degrees of freedom, which makes the analysis easier. As a new result we found out that the scalar perturbation spectrum is unchanged, but the tensor perturbation spectrum is suppressed by the higher-order curvature couplings.

The nature of dark matter (DM) is one of the outstanding problems of modern physics. The existence of dark matter implies physics beyond the Standard Model (SM), as the SM doesn’t contain any viable DM candidates. Dark matter manifests itself through various cosmological and astrophysical observations of the rotational speeds of galaxies, structure formation, measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) and gravitational lensing of galaxy clusters. An attractive explanation of the observed dark matter density is provided by the WIMP (Weakly Interacting Massive Particle) paradigm. In the following thesis I explore this idea within the well motivated Higgs portal framework. In particular, I explore three options for dark matter composition: a scalar field and U(1) and SU(2) hidden gauge Fields. I find that the WIMP paradigm is still consistent with the data. Even though it finds itself under pressure from direct detection experiments, it is not yet in crisis. Simple and well motivated WIMP models can fit the observed DM density without violating the collider and direct DM detection constraints.

The Standard model of particle physics has been very successful in describing particles and their interactions. In 2012 the last missing piece, the Higgs boson, was discovered at the Large Hadron Collider. However even for all its success the Standard model fails to explain some phenomena of nature. Two of these unexplained phenomena are dark matter and the metastability of the electroweak vacuum. In this thesis we study one of the simplest extensions of the Standard model; the complex singlet scalar extension. In this framework the CP-even component of the singlet mixes with the Standard model like Higgs boson through the portal operator to form new mass eigenstates. The CP-odd component is a pseudo-Goldstone boson which could be a viable dark matter candidate. We analyse parameter space of the model with respect to constraints from particle physics experiments and cosmological observations. The time evolution of dark matter number density is derived to study the process of dark matter freeze-out. The relic density of the Dark Matter candidate is then calculated with the micrOmegas tool. These calculations are then compared to the measured values of dark matter relic density. Moreover, the electroweak vacuum can be stabilised due the contribution of the singlet scalar to the Standard Model Higgs potential. We derive the β-functions of the couplings in order to study the renormalisation group evolution of the parameters of the model. With the contribution of the portal coupling to the β-function of the Higgs coupling we are able to stabilise the electroweak vacuum up to the Planck scale. The two-loop β-functions are calculated using the SARAH tool.

Active galactic nuclei (AGN) are one of the most powerful sources of the luminous Universe. Radio-loud AGN exhibit prominent relativistic outflows known as jets, whose synchrotron radiation can be detected in the radio domain. The launching, evolution and variable nature of these sources is still not fully understood. We study 3C 84, because its proximity, brightness and the intermittent nature of its jet makes it a good target to investigate these open questions of the AGN phenomena. 3C 84 (optical counterpart: NGC 1275) is a Fanaroff-Riley type I radio galaxy, located in the Perseus cluster at z = 0.0176. Due to its close proximity, 3C 84 has been a favourable target for observations throughout the entire electromagnetic spectrum, especially for ones in the radio domain. Its most recent activity started 2003, when a new component emerged from the core in the form of a restarted parsec-scale jet. This provided a rare opportunity to study the formation and evolution of a jet (see Nagai et al. 2010, 2014, 2017 and Suzuki et al. 2012). The highest resolution results were obtained by Giovannini et al. (2018), who imaged the source with the Global VLBI Network together with the Space Radio Telescope, RadioAstron. This enabled them to capture the limb-brightened structure of the restarted jet and measure its collimation profile from ~350 gravitational radii. In this work I present the 22 GHz RadioAstron observations carried out 3 years later, in a similar configuration, but with a significantly different sampling of the space baselines than the ones presented in Giovannini et al. (2018). The calibration was carried out in the Astronomical Image Processing System (AIPS), whereas imaging was done in Difmap (Shepherd 1997). The aim of this thesis work was to obtain a high-resolution image of the source, measure the collimation profile of the restarted jet, and compare the results with those of Giovannini et al. (2018) and verify the observed source structures and measured jet properties, if possible. Comparing the images of the two epochs (angular resolution of the 2016 observations is 0.217x0.072 mas at Pa=-49.6°), they both show a similar structure, with the radio core, a diffuse emission region (C2), and the hotspot (C3) at the end of the restarted jet. Edge-brightening is confirmed in the jet and the counter-jet. However, the jet has advanced ~1 mas, corresponding to the velocity of 0.55c. C3 has moved from the center of the feature to the jet head, indicating an interaction between the jet and the clumpy external medium (Kino et al. , 2018 and Nagai et al., 2017). The base of the jet has also changed between the observation, approximately by ~20°. In the light that in the 1990s the jet pointed towards C2, then swinged westwards when the jet emerged (Suzuki et al., 2012 and Giovannini et al., 2018), and on the 2016 image has moved towards its initial position. This suggest a precessing jet, observed and modeled by Dominik et al. (2021) and Britzen et al. (2019). Measuring the brightness temperature of the core and the hotspot shows a signifacant drop of 70% and 50% since the 2013 measurements, respectively, due to emission of jet material and the expansion of the jet. Jet width measurements between 1200 and 19000 gravitational radii reveal a less cylindrical collimation profile, with r ~ z0.31 – where z is the de-projected distance from the core and r is the width of the jet. The evolution of the restarted jet’s profile from quasi-cylindrical (Giovannini et al. 2018) to less cylindrical implies that the cocoon surrounding the jet (Savolainen, 2018) cannot confine the jet material as it moves further from the core. The measured collimation profile corresponds to a slowly decreasing density, and more steeply decreasing pressure gradient in the external medium. Since the closest jet width measurement is only at 1200 gravitational radii from the core (here the jet width is 750 gravitational radii), it cannot confirm the wide jet base measured by Giovannini et al. (2018) at 350 gravitational radii. Based on this result, we arrive at the same conclusion as Giovannini et al. (2018), that the jet is either launched from the accretion disk, or it is ergosphere-launched, but undergoes a quick lateral expansion below 1000 gravitational radii.

Core galaxies are bright elliptical galaxies that contain a shallow central surface brightness profile. They are expected to form in mergers of massive gas-poor elliptical galaxies that contain supermas- sive black holes (SMBHs) in their respective centres. During the merger process, these black holes form a coalescing binary, which causes the ejection of stars from the centre of the galaxy merger in complex three-body interactions, resulting in the creation of a low-luminosity core. I have studied whether core galaxies can form according to the formation model described above. I analysed the results of seven galaxy merger simulations done using KETJU, a simulation code specifically made for studying the dynamics of supermassive black holes in galaxies. KETJU is a regularised tree-code, combining both the GADGET-3 tree-code and an AR-CHAIN integrator. This allows for the simultaneous simulation of both general galactic dynamics and accurate particle motion near black holes, respectively. All seven simulations consisted of a merger of two identical galaxies. Six of the simulations had galaxies with equal mass central SMBHs, where the mass of the black holes changed from one simulation to another, and ranged from 8.5 × 10 8 M to 8.5 × 10 9 M . For the sake of comparison, the galaxies in the seventh simulation did not contain SMBHs. The other properties of the merged galaxies were determined in such a way, that the resulting merger remnants would be as similar as possible to the well studied core galaxy NGC 1600. Naturally, these properties were identical across all of the simulation runs. By calculating the surface brightness profiles of the merger remnants in the simulation results, I found out that only simulations that contained SMBHs produced remnants with cores. Furthermore, I identified a clear positive correlation between the size of the core and the mass of the coalescing binary SMBH. Both of these results corroborate the theory, that the cores are formed by interacting SMBH binaries. This interpretation of the results was further enforced by the fact that, according to their velocity anisotropy profiles, stellar orbits near the centre of the remnants were tangentially dominated, implying that stellar particles on more radial orbits had been ejected from the system. I also generated 2D maps of the stellar line-of-sight velocity distributions in the simulated merger remnants. These maps showed kinematic properties similar to observed core galaxies, such as "kinematically distinct cores". Finally, I compared both photometric and kinematic properties of the simulated merger remnant containing the largest SMBH binary to the observed properties of NGC 1600. I found that the simulation and the observations agree well with each other. Since the properties of the simulated merger remnants follow theoretical expectations and is in general good agreement with the obser- vations, I conclude that the formation of the cores in bright elliptical galaxies is likely caused by coalescing binary black holes in dry mergers of elliptical galaxies.

This thesis presents the results from seventeen collisionless merger simulations of massive early-type galaxies in an effort to understand the coalescence of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in the context of the Final Parsec Problem. A review of the properties of massive early-type galaxies and their SMBHs is presented alongside a discussion on SMBH binary coalescence to motivate the initial conditions used in the simulations. The effects of varying SMBH mass and stellar density profiles in the progenitor initial conditions on SMBH coalescence was investigated. Differing mass resolutions between the stellar particles and the SMBHs for each physical realisation were also tested. The simulations were performed on the supercomputers Puhti and Mahti at CSC, the Finnish IT Centre for Science. SMBH coalescence was found to only occur in mergers involving SMBH binaries of equal mass, with the most rapid coalescence observed in galaxies with a steep density profile. In particular, the eccentricity of the SMBH binary was observed to be crucial for coalescence: all simulations that coalesced displayed an orbital eccentricity in excess of e=0.7 for the majority of the time for which the binary was bound. Simulations of higher mass resolution were found to have an increased number of stellar particles able to positively interact with the SMBH binary to remove orbital energy and angular momentum, driving the binary to coalescence. The gravitational wave emission from an equal mass SMBH binary in the final stages before merging was calculated to be within the detection limits required for measurement by pulsar timing arrays. Mergers between galaxies of unequal mass SMBHs were unable to undergo coalescence irrespective of mass resolution or progenitor density profile, despite the binary in some of these simulations displaying a high orbital eccentricity. It was determined that the stellar particles interacting with the SMBH binary were unable to remove the required orbital energy and angular momentum to bring the SMBHs to within the separation required for efficient gravitational wave emission. A trend between increasing mass resolution and increasing number of stellar particles able to remove energy from the SMBH binary was observed across all the simulation suites. This observation is of paramount importance, as three-body interactions are essential in removing orbital energy and angular momentum from the SMBH binary, thus overcoming the Final Parsec Problem. As such, it is concluded that the Final Parsec Problem is a numerical artefact arising from insufficient mass resolution between the stellar particles and the SMBHs rather than a physical phenomenon.